Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

some property. Perfect. Okay, we'll go ahead and get this meeting started. We'll welcome you to the Twilla City Planning Commission meeting this Wednesday, January 28th, almost the end of January already at the hour of 7 p.m. here in City Council Chambers at 90 North Main Street. The first item on our agenda tonight is our pledge of allegiance. If you'll please rise and repeat the pledge with me. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Always. Thank you for that. Next item on our agenda tonight is a roll call. Uh, Commissioner Hammer here. Commissioner Sloan here. Commissioner Proctor here. Commissioner Cordova here. Commissioner Jensen here. Commissioner Anderson

here. Please recognize commissioners Faircloth and Lynford, council members Gosset and Hansen, staff members Mr. Roberts, Miss Young, Mr. Agard, and Mr. Johnson joining us tonight. Number three on our agenda is a public hearing and decision to a conditional use permit request by HNG Auto Repair to authorize the uses of automobile automobile service and repair and automobile sales and rental to occur at the property located at 355 North Garden Street in the GC general commercial zoning district at approximately 0.55 acres. Mr. Agard,

thank you. Commissioners, this application for a conditional use permit is located adjacent to Garden Street, south of 400 North and east of Main Street. It's an existing property. Um, you've all probably been familiar with it as you've driven by that that it's been it's been there for a while and there's been activity conducted out of this property for as as long as I've been with the city. The applicant, as the chair mentioned, is is looking for a conditional use permit to do uh automobile service and repair. And the application also indicated automobile sales and rental as well as towing and vehicle storage. One of the things I wanted to emphasize to the planning commission up front is um a vehicle storage yard or an impound lot is not a permissible use in this zone. Now, we do anticipate that vehicle repair businesses will have ancillary towing. Sometimes they have to bring an inoperable vehicle to the site and sometimes vehicle repair businesses have storage because they have to store inoperable vehicles while they're working on them or or waiting for parts. So, there is some ancillary towing there, but I want to emphasize that this cannot be used as exclusively vehicle storage and an impound yard. and one of your conditions in there has that the property is zoned GC general commercial as are the properties to the north and to the west and to the south with R17 residential located on the adjacent side of Garden Street. The applicant did provide a site plan that shows the location of the building and some detached structures along with some available parking spaces east of the building and to the north of the building. The condition of the site is largely unimproved. There is some old gravel that was brought in and placed

adjacent to the building, but by and large the site is unpaved. And there is considerable area to the north of the building where where vehicles can be parked and stored while awaiting repair or sale. Um staff did or has recommended approval of the conditional use permit with a handful of conditions I'd like to review. Um the first four conditions are basically our catch-all conditions where uh they need to have building permit for any building renovations or or remodeling and if they do any construction at on the site they need to meet public works requirements and fire department requirements and so forth. The uh condition number five we think is important and we usually assess these to or we usually add these conditions to these types of businesses. Um when you have vehicles that are inoperable or being stored, vehicles tend to tend to leak fluids into the soil and as you know Tilla City gets all of its water from most of its water from groundwater supplies. And so we would like to have measures taken to limit or prevent uh leaked vehicle fluids from percolating into the soil and polluting the groundwater supply. Um I didn't get a whole lot of specifics there. It can be asphalt, concrete, or any other forms of pavement. Uh there are crushed gravels and things that can be utilized and so forth that we've seen done before that that can be effective at fulfilling that condition. Um if they're going to be selling cars, they probably want to consider sight lighting. If they do use sight lighting, we recommend that they use lowcale boulder lighting or specific cabinetry to direct light down and into

the site. Um, the vehicle storage areas should be fenced with solid view obscuring type fence. Again, I didn't put much specifics on the fencing. There are alternatives that they can uh you they can use to to accomplish that. And then condition number eight, the site may not be used as a vehicle storage yard or an impound lot for tow truck companies. The only vehicle storage permissible on the site shall be those vehicles that are awaiting repair or sale. Uh those are the conditions that we're recommending with this conditional use permit. We're recommending approval with those eight conditions. We did send out notices to property owners within 200 ft of the subject property and I have not received any comments from anybody within that noticing radius. So that's the application what's being requested. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to try and answer those for you.

Okay, we can bring this back to the commission. And I love that uh the city's already put in some conditions that I know we're going to find out of our findings of fact. So, we appreciate that much. So, let's bring this back to the commission for questions, comments, concerns. I have a question. Yes, Commissioner Jensen. On number seven, the vehicle storage areas shall be fenced with solid view obscuring type fencing. Is that all ve like this vehicles for sale or just the ones that are like wrecked being ready or waiting to be fixed? I wonder how That's a great question because it kind of defeats the purpose of selling vehicles if you can't see them. Yeah. So maybe it just should be vehicle storage areas for inoperable vehicles or vehicles awaiting repair. Okay.

You could amend that condition to reflect that like just to kind of clean it up just to make it more clear. Anyway, yeah, good point. So, and then I Well, never mind. Throw it out there. It's kind of So, one of the first meetings that I was in several years back, there was another um automotive place and they were having some conditional use permits cuz they were trying to get another one and it seemed like there was I don't remember all the details, but there's inoperable inoperable vehicles that weren't behind a fence and some other issues. Does anybody else remember that? Mhm. Well, we just went through that with Marcosian.

So, I don't I don't know if there's anything we can do. I don't remember all the details. I just don't know if there's anything we could do to make it easier in the long run cuz that seemed like it was kind of a drawn out process and it was affecting other other things, you know, in town that the people that were tied to it wanted to do. You were talking Are you talking about the one that was back behind uh by behind the old food town? Yeah, by Allen Food Town. Yeah, that one that one was fairly problematic and code enforcement was heavily involved in that one trying to bring it into compliance with the cup conditions. Yeah, he eventually moved to another location and then eventually left the city. Okay. So, you probably see him out there on SR36. He's occupying that house. All right.

Um, well, I just don't know if there's something I don't remember all the details, but I just don't know if there's something we can do to make it so that repair going on in front of the fence or it was it had to do with repairs. I can't remember. Yeah. What it was. It's it's it's your responsibility to throw the condition in there if you determine that there's an impact that needs to be medicated. Yeah. And then it's staff's responsibility to enforce that. So, the only thing I can tell you is if you feel it needs to have a if it warrants a condition, put that condition in your in your staff report and and let me and my department do our best to enforce it. Sounds good. Do you have anything in mind you'd like to propose?

I can't think of anything off the top of my head. That's why I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't really have a solution. A lot of a lot of it also depends on the applicant. With that previous application, that applicant was he was not forthright in in what he was doing and how he was doing things. Yeah. Um I think that's what really ultimately caused us the heartburn is that saying one thing and doing another and Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Well, it's a good discussion to have though. Very good to have.

Actually, on number eight, I just see huge wide open gate here when we are talking about awaiting repair or sale. What is the definition and how are we going to specify that this vehicle that has been sitting there for 6 months is awaiting repair? Yeah, that's another great point. That's a very difficult thing for staff to prove. So again, in this situation, I think the best thing we can do is set the condition just with for the applicant to understand that you cannot use this as an exclusive vehicle storage yard. As long as they're operating an automobile repair business there, I think that's I think storage is part of it. But if he just has a sign on that building and says vehicle towing impound yard and he's not doing repair there, that's a problem. We can enforce that. So,

okay. Kind of wrapping your head how we can Yeah, I'm getting you because there's some other repair. I mean, you're familiar with the auto repair business north of the Vasa. Yeah. Um, Master Tech Auto, great business. I take my vehicles there when I need repair. He has vehicles back there behind his fence that have been sitting there for a few months. Yeah. So, it it's it happens, but they are legitimate auto repair business. They don't impound vehicles. So, it's just one of those win-win win-lose kind of situations. We do what we can. Great questions, by the way.

Yes. Very good. And if we've got any ideas how to word this any better, let's let's put it down on paper now.

Any other questions from the commission? Okay, this item does require a public hearing. Is the applicant here tonight? Okay, I'll give you some time after the public hearing to address the commission if you'd like. You don't have to, but you're welcome to. But I'm going to open the public hearing and after that you can you can address it if that's okay. With that having been said, I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing. For anybody that like to speak to this item, please approach the podium, write your name for the record, and state your name for the record as well, please. Yeah, I'm Bob Johnson, pardon me. Um, I'm on Main Street or on 400 North, just off of Maine. So, I run a small shop out of a home occupancy right there. And, uh, most of the things that are on the list, uh, I totally agree with and I've had to comply with that. My probably my biggest one and I've mentioned this before um is you get a lot of cars and if we the the other car lot goes in that they're we've talked about before just off of Main Street. We're going to have 50 60 cars back there. We get a fire back there. How are we going to access it to control fire and and and manage that aspect of the business? Okay. I'm limited to four or five cars is all I can have. But if you if you drive by now, we've got significant amount of cars on those two lots back there. So that would be my biggest concern and as long as you meet all the other requirements. Uh I'm fine with it. Uh only other couple of things I had is lighting that you've pretty much addressed and uh is there going to be any landscaping required in in this project

and uh street access into the yard. So those are the things that I have. Right on. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Appreciate it.

Thank you for your time. Is there one up there? There we go. See when no one else approach, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and invite the applicant up. If you'd like to address the commission, you're welcome to. Now

you're okay. That's okay, too. All right. Let's bring this back to the commission for any other further discussion. Chairman. Yes, please. Commissioner Lynford approached me and would like to offer comment or commit or absolutely or questions and that comes down to the chairman's. Yep. Absolutely. Uh Commissioner Lynford, if you want to come up to the podium, you can speak to us there. That would be easier for you with a microphone. Thank you. This is exactly how it's supposed to be done. Mhm.

Having spent the last 10 years in automotive industry myself and having that background, um some thoughts that I had is first if there is a limitation on vehicles on property, um that could significantly help reduce that uh storage and waiting for as far as the long term, you're less likely to have longerterm repairs. Um coming from the auto industry, I know that uh there are times where trying to get an engine from for Mitsubishi from Japan can take up to 6 months. Um, however, those are very specific incidents and if there was a limitation on vehicles uh for repair versus uh long-term repair versus sales, I think that that could help mitigate a lot of some of the questions that we're asking ourselves as far as both the appearance um the enforcement and I think a condition that specifies and segregates those types of repairs in a limiting number may be sufficient. Perfect. And that leads me to my question. Is that something that we can put a condition in for Mr. Augger?

I think we'd have to find a find a issue with it. My struggle would be what's that number? What is that? We can only we can only do findings of of something that we see as a problem and that can't we can't deny anything based on anything other than not being able to mitigate a problem. The problem is I'm not sure how I quantify the problem. Well, to Mr. Johnson's point, if you drive by there, it already looks like a story chart.

And I, you know, as I look at the aerial photograph, I count 20 cars on it now. Um, and I don't know if if that's what it's like today. If that's what it looks like when I drove by, that's what it looked like. So uh if that in and of itself and then we have to identify what exactly that problem is that that causes is it just aesthetic and does that fall within our purview? Uh I don't know. Mhm. I think the sticks be covered by the fence. Fencing. Fencing. Yes. Whatever you're going to put behind the fence, too,

enclose more and just part of it and then maybe just have the forell cars be in front of the business on display whereas the rest have to be behind the obscuring fence, which is pretty much is what we've got lined out in our conditions already. Correct. So, go ahead. Come on up. You might as well just hang out. I love the input, by the way. So, don't be don't be nervous.

As a clarification um to my earlier comment, what I have seen um as a lender visiting different dealerships throughout the uh state of Utah, one of the things that I have seen that has been approved as a condition in other counties is 50% of the property could be used for repair, whether that be short-term or long-term repair. um 30% of the property being utilized for sales and then that remaining 20% is for the comeand go traffic as well as staff uh parking etc. So just to clarify how that would look um to the commission that's how I have seen it done prior in having either set up dealership myself or having gone through and visited other dealerships that have done something similar. As far as the fencing is concerned, as long as it is um three of the four sides, uh higher concealed fencing, that typically appeases that. And then just having a uh shorter fence up front so that the vehicles that are for sale are still visible and are still appealing to the general public could also be a thought.

Okay. More of a percentage type thing. Any discussion on that? I I still just don't see how it's going to like what issue are we mitigating by that and that's what we're here for. So and and number four already says that meets all the requirements of the Tula City Fire Department. So um that's going to kind of play into that as well. You got to be able to get a truck in there or or what needs to be done through the fire department and they're going to investigate and do what they need to do as well if I'm not mistaken. So, I think a lot of this may be mitigated in what we have already in front of us. Yeah.

But those are great ideas and that might be something we can look into for the future um as we move forward with some of these. But a percentage of the property might be different and that's something an engineer is going to have to put together cuz I'm not that smart. with the number of cars. Is there a way that we could put in um a maximum amount of vehicles, number of vehicles that could be there at any given time? Cuz it the parking talks about section talks about having 12 designated spots, but they're not lined. They're not striped. And right now, it looks like there's 20ish cars there. So, is there a way to say how many cars that could be there? So, they're not so it doesn't look like a storage area.

I think we're running into the same problem. What what we can actually quantify for it. Yeah. But I mean, it's a great thought, but how do we quantify quantify that number? And actually, the number of cars as long as they're behind a fence doesn't really matter. you know, the for sale cars out and in place of business, if you've got places, the cars for sale, you want it aesthetically pleasing as possible or no one's going to stop to shop you anyway. So, exactly. That's going to be a business decision they'll have to make. Marketing is the free the free way of doing it, right?

Any other thoughts, discussion? I will entertain a motion.

Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion.

Yes, Commissioner Jensen. I move we approve the conditional use permit request by Abner Abner Santos representing H&G Auto Repair to authorize the use of automobile sales and rental and automobile service and repair to occur at the subject property application number P or application number 2026004 based on the findings and subject to the conditions lifted in the staff report dated July 21st 202 26 with the number six on the staff report or is it number seven on the staff report? The vehicle storage area shall be fenced with solid view obscuring type fencing only around the vehicles not for sale and not customer vehicles. Yeah, the vehicles ready to be repaired. Yeah. Before I second it, which I'm inclined to do, would it make any sense to add uh vehicle storage and repair areas

to be fenced? Yes, I think that's Yep. So, amending number seven, vehicle storage. Andrew, do you have any heartburn with that verbiage? And maybe you should Mr. Johnson if he does. I think I'd rather have vehicle storage vehicle vehicle storage areas for vehicle storage areas for vehicles to be storage areas for vehicles awaiting repair. How's that sound for you? It's good for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But I'd second that.

Okay. We've got a motion from Commissioner Jensen to approve this amending condition number seven to state vehicle storage areas in repair shall be fenced with solid view as curing type fencing. Seconded from Commissioner Sloan. Am I correct? Any discussion before we take this to a vote? Commissioner Hammer, how do you vote? I. Commissioner Sloan. Hi. Commissioner Proctor. I. Commissioner Cordova. I. Commissioner Jensen. Hi. Commissioner Anderson. I I am Chairman Hamilton. I also vote I. That one passes seven to zero. Moving on to number four on our agenda is our city council reports. So, I'm going to do that from right here.

Perfect. No worries. The one thing that was talked about in the last planning commission meeting was the canyon road up there of allowing them, you know, changing that so they could have not the improvements, you know, for the curb and gutter and so forth for that one section. And uh we also approved that the same as you did. We followed along with you guys and uh actually did something you guys like. I'm just kidding you. But yeah, but anyway, we approved that and everything went well there. And uh we had a short meeting also. So that was a good day, too. Um we're going to beat it. I don't know if you guys have any questions for me or us. We got bunch of new people and things are going good, it looks like.

Absolutely. There's any questions from the commission for the council? Thank you. All right. Thank you. And you guys, you new count commissioners, you're welcome to ask them questions anytime offline or online, but they are your resources. So, please contact them, especially Mr. Gossa. Uh he's new. Give him something to do. Next item on our agenda is a review and decision. These are our January 14th, 2026 planning commission meeting minutes. There any corrections or additions to those minutes? Now chair, I move we approve them as presented. Got a motion to approve from Commissioner Proctor and a second from Commissioner Anderson.

Is that correct? Yes. Commissioner Hammer, how do you vote? I. Commissioner Sloan. Hi. Commissioner Proctor. I. Commissioner Cordova. Hi. Commissioner Jensen. Hi. Commissioner Anderson. I. I am Chairman Hamilton. I also vote I. Those pass seven to zero. Uh, next item on our agenda is number six. I'll entertain a motion. So moved. We are ajourned. Thank you. Thank you. Mute them questions.